Lady Beavers bounce Bethel

The purpose of preseason scrimmages is to gauge your team’s readiness for the upcoming season’s play. Following the Pratt Community College women’s basketball scrimmage against Bethel College Monday evening, head coach Stephanie Thompson believed her team still had plenty to work on in the final remaining practices before the season starts for real on Friday.

The purpose of preseason scrimmages is to gauge your team’s readiness for the upcoming season’s play. Following the Pratt Community College women’s basketball scrimmage against Bethel College Monday evening, head coach Stephanie Thompson believed her team still had plenty to work on in the final remaining practices before the season starts for real on Friday.

Not that the Lady Beavers didn’t win the scrimmage, they did—72-63. It was more the WAY they played rather than the outcome that concerned Coach Thompson. “We were not solid on defense,” Thompson observed. “On offense, we looked like we were playing too much ‘street ball’ “.

PCC took their first lead of the night on an ‘and-one’ by Tatiana Grant followed by a Lanina Spence 3-ball. 11-9 Beavers. As the Lady Beavers offense heated up, Bethel was able to keep pace mostly from the free throw line. “We fouled too much, we were reaching and grabbing instead of moving our feet,” said Thompson.

With 7:00 to go in the first half, the score was knotted at 23. Down the stretch, Bethel went into a zone. Karissa Pena cashed in, hitting treys from the wing on successive possessions. PCC went to the locker room up 37-33.

In the second half, Bethel closed up the deficit and the game was 41-40 at the 15:00 mark. From that point, PCC had probably their best offensive stretch of the evening. To begin, Grant and Sherry Calhoun executed the pick-and-roll. On the next possession, Calhoun converted a nice post move inside. Then Grant hit two FT after getting fouled in transition off a steal by Shanell Dedrick. Grant then drove the lane for 2, and then Elle Stein knocked down a pair of charity tosses after getting fouled on the block. “Our offense clicks when do our system,” Thompson mentioned. “We get good looks when we run our offense.”

Meanwhile, Bethel could only manage a few points and PCC had opened up a 51-44 lead by midway through the final period. The rest of the game was played on fairly even terms. Whenever the Threshers tried to make a run, a Lady Beaver would make a big play to give the momentum back to Pratt.

For example, Dedrick and Stein worked the pick-and-roll and Kari Devlin converted an old-fashioned 3-point play to help keep Bethel at bay. When time ran out, Pratt was up 72-63.

“We have the potential to be good,” Coach Thompson concluded after the scrimmage was over. ”We’re not very deep, so we have to quit fouling so much. We also need more scoring out of our bigs if we’re going to compete with the better teams.”

Page 2 of 2 - The Lady Beavers will tip off the season this weekend with an event at Hutchinson where they will play Labette at 1:30 on Friday and Kansas Wesleyan at 1:30 on Saturday.